Alternate title: “Welcome, now get in the damn pool”
I felt like an Irishman on the morning after St. Paddy’s.
And not a true Irishman—one of those white-collar white boys who sports a Celtics tat on his right arm and claims that he’s the Gaelic God every March 17th as he downs his seventh pint in some faux-pub named O’Flynns. You know, a chump who puffs his chest and thinks he’s got the strength to down gallons of Guinness, but ends up grogged and groggy the following morning.
That’s how I felt this morning.
Standing, toes curled over the edge of the pool today, I embodied a pubescent Woody Allen in my speedo. I didn’t want to jump into the water. I couldn’t blame laziness; no, I even biked to the pool today. Something else kept me frozen at the edge of the pool.
I just graduated from UCLA. Frequently I get the trusty question, “You just graduated, Kevin. So how do you feel?” Just to stir things up—and to relate with the baby boomer demographic to whom I often answer this question—I respond that I feel like Dustin Hoffman’s character in The Graduate.
Graduated? Yes. Accomplished? Sure. Confused? You betcha.
With this confusion, you end up doing one of two things:
- Lying idle in your bed, picking at your navel lint and watching GIFs of ROFLcopters and LOLCats. (Thankfully, this has not happened to me yet.)
- Or you prepare to make the plunge into unknown depths. (Yep, that describes my situation.)
Sure, like lane lines in a pool, my major (Economics) gives me some type of guidance toward a life path, but like water in the pool, constantly undulating and shifting, the world’s-a-changin’. Technology booms with child-like curiosity and enthusiasm. The economy busts like a condom made by Greece’s bungling politicians. And here I stood on the edge of the pool frozen amongst all of this dynamism.
I could resign myself to the excuse that even Olympic athletes have brainfarts during their flows of genius. I mean, Michael Phelps tooted on the bong and played hooky in Vegas after his eight golds in the Beijing 2008 Olympics. Now, I don’t mean to say that I just won the Olympics nor does my brain throb with flows of genius, but after four years of solid, college work, I would say that it could at least equate to some kind of Iron Man triathlon. I’ve just finished an endurance test, and now I stand on the edge of the pool teetering between two thoughts:
- “Is that it?”
- “Is there more?”
In characteristic fashion, I soon whispered to myself, “Just get going already,” and I leaped into the pool. As I managed my first strokes, I began to move and creak through the water like the Tin Man before Dorothy refreshes him with oil in The Wizard of Oz. A week had passed since I last swam. My gears felt so rusty and mechanical. But momentum triumphed over inertia at this moment. In the words of Dory in Finding Nemo, “Just keep swimming.”
One hundred yards of swimming lead to one thousand yards, and with each flip turn, stroke and kick I got more into the groove. My muscles pulsed with that swimmer’s vibe again. Sure, I can feel stuck and a bit confused at this spot in my life, but it shouldn’t stop me from bumpin’ to life’s mad beats. I love these little epiphany moments I get while swimming. I’ve done a lot since starting UCLA. I don’t know where to go now, but it will not stop me from taking a blind stroke forward.
So, welcome to this slice of the Internet. I’m honored that you are here. I created this so that I may journal these blind strokes I will take, and since my life often gets sprinkled with all sorts of interesting, you will often find posts ranging from technology to film/tv to travel. “The usual” just isn’t my thing.
But this blog isn’t about me. It never was.
This is about the world—the time and place we live in. Sure, I just graduated from UCLA, but for a 22-year old I’m not making any last hurrah. Not yet. Not for a long while. There’s a whole world out there, and it’s time to explore it. Welcome, my friends. Come join this post-groggy grad as he wakes up, bows out of the classroom and really learns.
The St. Paddy’s Day hangover ends now.
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[…] Since graduating from college, both me and the many young entrepreneurs I collaborate with have faced a real challenge: un-learning two decades of traditional education. However, this un-learning has been totally worth it. In fact, it’s been empowering. In traditional education you’re taught to get a degree, get a job, stay in that job until you can no longer do that job and then die. But if you view life from the perspective of the entrepreneurial, real world, then life is what you make of it. You can do anything, even make imitation meat taste good. […]